Substance Over Forms
The DWC has proposed revisions to a slew of forms recently. Among them:
The DWC Form-001, “Employer’s First Report of Injury or Illness,” has been re-formatted with one noticeable change. Previously, the employer was asked to provide the “Date Lost Time Began.” The new version inquires instead after “First day absent from work.” The same change can now be found in the DWC-002, “Employer’s Report for Reimbursement of Voluntary Payment,” and the DWC-006 “Supplemental Report of Injury.”
The latest alteration to the perpetually revised DWC032 “Request for Designated Doctor Examination” corrects some wording in the extent of injury issue, but more importantly amends the “Other similar issues” (Box 31 G) to incorporate a request for an examination to determine “eligibility to receive lifetime income benefits,” which was not previously specified.
A new form, the DWC038 “Application for lifetime income benefits,” has been proposed. The form sets forth a section listing the possible bases for the injured worker’s entitlement to LIBs, including one for a “first responder with a serious bodily injury that makes you permanently unemployable.”
